5 eye-popping facts from the Warriors’ beatdown of the Lakers

Basketball

5 eye-popping facts from the Warriors’ beatdown of the Lakers

The Warriors hung 149 points on the Lakers, and that wasn’t even the best part.

The Golden State Warriors beat the L.A. Lakers 149-106 on Wednesday. That score is an eyebrow-raiser because 149 is nowhere near 106 on the number line, which means that there was no overtime and there was probably gobs of garbage time. Both of these facts are true. The Warriors scored 149 points in 48 minutes, with Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, and Draymond Green all sitting out the fourth.

(Kevin Durant played about five minutes in the fourth for unknown reasons.)

The final score wasn’t the only amazing thing from this game, though.

1. Only four Warriors scored in double figures.

They scored 149 points but only Curry (31), Durant (28), Thompson (26), and Ian Clark (21) scored in double-digits. That said, everyone on the roster but Patrick McCaw did score some points, and those add up.

By the way, the Curry-Durant-Thompson trio combined to score 85 points in 83 minutes on 53 shooting possessions (1.6 points per possession).

2. The Warriors had the most assists in a game in 25 years.

Golden State racked up 47 assists. The last time a team had earned that many in any game — regulation or overtime — was 1991. (The Suns did it to Dell Curry’s Hornets.) The Warriors got those 47 assists on 53 made baskets, so 89 percent of Golden State’s buckets were assisted. Here’s the best one of the bunch.

3. No team has scored this many points in regulation in six years.

The last team to drop 149 in regulation was the 2009-10 Phoenix Suns. (They got 152. Woo-wee.) But only one team has hit 149 even in overtime since then: the Thunder in a double-overtime win against the Wolves in March 2012. Durant scored 40 in 52 minutes in that one (vs. his 28 in 30 minutes this time).

Even better, the Thunder needed 113 field goal attempts to get to 149 in that game. The Warriors just did it in 86. In fact, per basketball-reference.com, only one team since 1983-84 has scored 149 or more in fewer than 86 field goal attempts. The ’86 Sixers scored 153 in 84 FGAs (thanks not to three-pointers, but to 59 free throw attempts).

4. This was a historically bad defensive performance for the Lakers.

The Lakers have been around a long time ... and have rarely performed this badly on defense. Per basketball-reference.com, the 43-point loss is tied for the fifth-worst in franchise history, and the 149 points conceded is the fourth-highest total in franchise history (third-highest in regulation). It was the second-worst single-game defensive rating, the second-highest opponent effective field goal percent, and third-highest opponent True Shooting percentage for the Lakers since 1983-84.

It was also the most assists a Lakers opponent had tallied since 1983-84 and tied for the second-most threes hit by an opponent ever.

Bad job, Lakers.

5. Klay Thompson brought his dog to the locker room.

Remember this as the Warriors put up ridiculous numbers this season: Klay Thompson is helping the cause while not giving one solitary damn about anything but himself and his dog.

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As I flew out of Manila yesterday morning I noticed that it happened to be a clear day over most of the NCR, and what big clouds there were weren’t big enough to cover everything. So our PAL Airbus A330 flew around the giant clouds and in between them you could catch a glimpse of considerable sections of Metro Manila. My younger brother seated behind me pointed out UP Diliman - and I marveled at the way the campus was green as seen from the air and at how it was laid out.